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CHARLESTON, S.C. — A South Carolina psychiatrist and his wife, a nurse, have taken an uncommon,
controversial approach to helping war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

They’re treating them with MDMA, a pure form of the party drug known as Ecstasy.

Dr. Michael Mithoefer and his wife, Ann, said their studies have found that the psychoactive
stimulant decreases fear and defensiveness while increasing trust in those who take it as part of a
therapy program.

The MDMA-assisted therapy eventually could provide relief for thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans who suffer from combat trauma, the Mithoefers said, noting that nearly 300 military
personnel from across the country have contacted them seeking help.

Although concerns might arise about creating drug dependence or abuse by administering a tightly
controlled substance, Dr. Mithoefer said he hasn’t seen that problem. The couple’s use of MDMA in
studies has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, he said.

MDMA “does cause some euphoria. But for people with PTSD, it can be pretty intense anxiety as
well,” he said. “You need to have the support there. This is not a take-home medicine.”

Not everyone is convinced that the benefits outweigh the potential dangers.

Ron Acierno, director of the PTSD clinical team at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in
Charleston, S.C., said the Mithoefers’ results were interesting, but he remains skeptical.

“I don’t think any VA is going to touch this with a 10-foot pole because of the type of drug it
is,” Acierno said. “It’s hard to switch conceptual gears that it might actually be very useful for
a relatively common emotional disorder.

“Because the abuse potential is high, we have to be very careful about it,” he said.

Dr. Mithoefer, an assistant professor in the Medical University of South Carolina’s Department
of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, said he has long been interested in experiential techniques
that help patients shift their consciousness to revisit their traumas.

He developed the protocol for MDMA-assisted therapy in 2001 and published the first completed
study of its effect on patients with trauma in 2010.

He found that after two months of treatment, more than 80 percent of the patients, including
rape victims and a veteran, no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis.

A follow-up review of those patients, published last month in the
Journal of Psychopharmacology, showed at least 74 percent of them still had lasting
benefits 31/2 years after treatment.

The Mithoefers currently are treating 24 veterans, firefighters, police officers or victims of
military sexual trauma who have chronic PTSD that hasn’t been helped by other kinds of treatment.
This three-year study will be completed in 2014.